Meanwhile he is very grateful for something to eat, but oh, so funny in
his attempts at social grace! At first he would hold a cup of tea in
one hand, a plate of muffins in the other, and then search blankly for a
third hand to eat them with. Now he has solved the problem. He turns in
his toes and brings his knees together; then he folds his napkin into
a long, narrow wedge that fills the crack between them, thus forming a
very workable pseudo lap; after that he sits with tense muscles
until the tea is drunk. I suppose I ought to provide a table, but the
spectacle of Sandy with his toes turned in is the one gleam of amusement
that my day affords.
The postman is just driving in with, I trust, a letter from you. Letters
make a very interesting break in the monotony of asylum life. If you
wish to keep this superintendent contented, you'd better write often.
. . . . . . . .
Mail received and contents noted.
Kindly convey my thanks to Jervis for three alligators in a swamp.
He shows rare artistic taste in the selection of his post cards. Your
seven-page illustrated letter from Miami arrives at the same time. I
should have known Jervis from the palm tree perfectly, even without the
label, as the tree has so much the more hair of the two. Also, I have a
polite bread-and-butter letter from my nice young man in Washington,
and a book from him, likewise a box of candy. The bag of peanuts for the
kiddies he has shipped by express. Did you ever know such assiduity?
Jimmie favors me with the news that he is coming to visit me as soon
as father can spare him from the factory. The poor boy does hate that
factory so! It isn't that he is lazy; he just simply isn't interested in
overalls. But father can't understand such a lack of taste. Having built
up the factory, he of course has developed a passion for overalls,
which should have been inherited by his eldest son. I find it awfully
convenient to have been born a daughter; I am not asked to like
overalls, but am left free to follow any morbid career I may choose,
such as this.
To return to my mail: There arrives an advertisement from a wholesale
grocer, saying that he has exceptionally economical brands of oatmeal,
rice, flour, prunes, and dried apples that he packs specially for
prisons and charitable institutions. Sounds nutritious, doesn't it?
I also have letters from a couple of farmers, each of whom would like
to have a strong, husky boy of fourteen who is not afraid of work, their
object being to give him a good home. These good homes appear with great
frequency just as the spring planting is coming on. When we investigated
one of them last week, the village minister, in answer to our usual
question, "Does he own any property?" replied in a very guarded manner,
"I think he must own a corkscrew."